Tibetan prayer wheel
example · Tibetan Buddhism ·
retold in 6 talks
In Tibet you write a prayer on paper, put it in a wheel, spin it, and can think about sex, you pray objectively. Žižek uses this to introduce interpassivity: belief outsourced to an object or mechanism.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 5
“You write your prayer on a paper, put it in, you turn it around, and then you can think about sex, whatever, but objectively you pray.”
“you can think about sex, whatever you want, but objectively you pray. it prays for you.”
“Objectively true that turning praying wheel you are praying. You can think about sexuality primarily, it doesn't matter. You are praying.”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
Its cast and sources
populated by
John Stuart Mill1Jonathan Haidt1Victoria Nuland1Norbert Elias1Donald Tusk1Lech Kaczyński1Gáspár Miklós Tamás1Steven St. Croix1
alongside works
Every retelling 5
In Tibet you write a prayer on paper, put it in a wheel, spin it, and can think about sex, you pray objectively. Žižek uses this to introduce interpassivity: belief outsourced to an object or mechanism., illustrating interpassivity,objective belief,ideology functioning without the subject
Write a prayer, put it in a mill, let it spin, the mill prays for you while you think about anything. Illustrates how belief can be entirely outsourced to a mechanical Other, anticipating canned TV laughter., illustrating belief without belief,big Other,subjective vs. objective belief
Writing a prayer on paper and placing it in a spinning prayer wheel means that, objectively, you are praying, regardless of what you are actually thinking about. A pre-modern paradigm case of interpassivity., illustrating interpassivity
Žižek likens one theory of marriage to the Tibetan prayer wheel: you write a prayer on paper, spin the wheel, and can think about sex while 'objectively' praying. Marriage functions similarly to kill the excess of passionate love by substituting a symbolic mechanism., illustrating marriage,jouissance / surplus enjoyment
Writing a prayer on paper and spinning a wheel counts as praying even while thinking about sins, the most radical case of interpassivity before Žižek introduces canned laughter., illustrating interpassivity,externalization of belief